


the intricacies of survival

by uptillthree



Series: and living well [1]
Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Canon-Typical Warnings, Gen, Mentions of child sexual abuse, Nicaise Lives, Nicaise is safe and figuring things out safely, Recovery, canon-typical everything really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 20:52:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10772220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/uptillthree/pseuds/uptillthree
Summary: “Nicaise,” Laurent asks, “do you wish to survive?”Survive, Nicaise wonders. Whatever that means."True survival entails much more than staying alive, Nicaise." Laurent's voice is almost gentle. "It entails living, and living well."(When Nicaise oversteps, overestimates his own worth, and overhears the Regent's plans for him, he flees the palace as soon as breakfast ends. He takes all the currency he can, and spits at the palace doors, and curses the Regent’s name, voice lost in the busy streets.)





	the intricacies of survival

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings: This story, told from Nicaise's POV, will contain mentions of underage sexual abuse, pedophilia, and will show some of the effects of growing up in that kind of environment.

i.

Nicaise manages to provoke half of the slave’s (prince’s?) retinue on his very first day with them.

Which, while satisfying, was not much of a feat at all. Akielons truly were hot-headed barbarians. Still, Nicaise rather fancied Laurent would have been proud of him for it. A few words about calling their would-be king a whore and a slave and a brute, and everyone’s hands were on their weapons. The captain Nikandros looks furious most of all. 

Nicaise isn’t worried. He didn’t come all this way, from Vere to Akielos, only to fall because of a few  _ words.  _ Prince Laurent has ordered for his protection, after all. But this  _ is _ a very strange alliance.

“Leave him be, Nikandros,” Damen says evenly, before adding in Veretian for Nicaise’s benefit, “He is only a boy. And he is trying to provoke you.”

Nicaise sneers.  _ Boy. _ Clearly no longer, if the Regent had tried to dispose of him. But Damen had added the word  _ boy _ to anger him, so he does not show it.

“It works both ways, you know,” Damen continues to Nicaise. Something mocking slips into his tone. “Your Crown Prince bears my cuff on his wrist.”

Nicaise recoils.  _ What? _ “Works both ways? You were his  _ slave _ ,” he says spitefully. “And even then Laurent wouldn’t soil himself with the likes of—” But Damen seems to find this oddly funny, and Nicaise snaps his mouth shut. He knows condescension when he sees it.

 

ii.

At dinner, Damen sits next to him. Usually, it is Laurent who does that, and Damen keeps his distance. Nicaise twirls his fork between his fingers. Damen raises his eyebrows and cuts the meat on his plate expertly with a knife. A seat away, Laurent’s gaze passes them with an air of coolness, as if they were a show in which he had taken some interest.

“I must apologize for my words earlier in the day,” Damen says. Nicaise raises an eyebrow and fixes him with the glacial look Laurent reserves for the people in his way. Damen is undeterred. “I did not mean to imply anything cruel, when I spoke to you of Prince Laurent. But you must also understand,” he tells him, “that you have no right to speak to my soldiers in such a way. You court danger, and for no good reason.”

“It’s the truth,” Nicaise says. He does not lower his voice; in fact he pours all the scorn he can possibly muster in it, and hopes everyone hears. “You were a prince turned into a  _ slave. _ You weren’t even worth my cheapest necklace. You kissed his boot—”

“You court danger for no good reason,” Damen says again, firmer. “You have lashed out enough, Nicaise. I was a prince whether or not I was enslaved.” Damen does not lower his voice either, which, if Nicaise wished to admit it (he did not) was a little frightening. “Even then, I was only enslaved because of a traitor king’s treasonous actions, and I became free because of  _ my _ own actions soon enough. I think Akielos and Vere’s honorable victory will mean more for all the work it took to gain it.”

Nicaise scowls. He puts down his fork. “You would not be free if the Prince had not wished it,” he hisses— but his voice is quieter.

Damen appraises him a moment. “No, I think I would be,” he says, and it is not arrogance— it is a simple, even kingly, assurance. It makes Nicaise feel like he’s lost the argument. “And even so— your prince did wish it.” He smiles easily. “Do not try to provoke my people again, Nicaise. That is all I ask of you.”

_ Ask.  _ Ask, when he would soon be  _ king. _ Nicaise wondered who Damianos thought he was kidding.

 

iii.

If he lets his mind wander, it will go to the Regent. 

Sometimes he remembers the softness of the Regent’s bed, the rough, old hands on his skin— but he does not like to remember  _ that.  _ Because  it was not something he could entirely control.

Mainly, however, he remembers surviving beneath the Regent’s eyes.

The Regent had not liked his wit, the sharp remarks Nicaise had freely bestowed on Damen and Laurent and everyone; Nicaise wonders now if it had reminded him of Laurent, with that viper-like brain, so ruthless and not regal at all. The Regent, Nicaise knew, had preferred him child-like, innocent even in bed. Sweet. So Nicaise had played that part, had never spit out curses or sneered or let scorn twist his face— not, at least, in the Regent’s presence. He  _ had _ also been demanding and immature, as children sometimes were— but still. Child-like.

(Nicaise had loathed the Regent for that too. He  _ wasn’t _ a child.)

But the Regent was not a fool. And Nicaise was not deaf. 

(His ears worked fine, thank you, and so he had overheard the Regent’s plans for him—  _ I want his head sent to my nephew; I’d like him to know what they’ve  _ both _ done; my pet doesn’t seem to realize that he’s  _ overstepped, _ truly, such a little boy sometimes; he’s only a boy, after all, and there will be others; and tell Laurent, did you know, this one pleaded for him? Really, it will break all our hearts.  _

The Regent had thought him asleep in his bed. And so the Regent had spoken freely. The Regent  _ was  _ a fool, but so was Nicaise, then.)

(Nicaise had left the palace as soon as breakfast ended, terror making his hands quake. And he had taken all the currency he could, and had spat at the palace doors, and had cursed the Regent’s name, voice lost in the busy streets.)

 

iv.

Still, when he had asked the Regent, timidly, as though he were just a child asking for another toy  _ (I don’t see why you must hurt him, you shouldn’t kill him, your Highness, he’s your  _ nephew _ ),  _ he hadn’t seen the darkness of the Regent’s gaze— he knew the Regent would lose interest in him, but— but he hadn’t  _ thought—  _

Nicaise did not know what he had thought. 

He does not let his mind wander to the Regent again. 

 

v.

Nicaise does not stop provoking Damen’s soldiers. In his defense, he only does it when they do it first. If they were the ones to approach him, they shouldn’t be so shocked to hear what he has to say.

When Nikandros happens to sit beside him in a meal, Nicaise wastes no time. Nicaise knows that Nikandros has been told who he is: the Regent’s former pet. And he knows who  _ Nikandros  _ is: Damianos’ dearest friend, a companion since childhood. 

He pastes his most angelic smile on his face and blinks at him from beneath his lashes. “Shall we continue our previous conversation?” he asks. “About your precious Damen?”

Nikandros looks at him carefully, assessing. “That is King Damianos, to you. And he was right. You  _ are  _ trying to anger me, and my men, and anyone who would be loyal to him.”

“I assure you, I’m only doing it out of spite, not because I want to overthrow him. He’s not worth  _ that  _ much, even now.”

Nikandros stares, creating a long silence, then sighs in a very long-suffering way. “You are trying to provoke me,” he says, returning to his meal.

“And am I?” Nicaise leans closer.  _ “Provocative?”  _

Nikandros frowns. “No.”

“Have you ever seen your king without his cloak? Did you know, there are the most—” Nicaise struggles to recall the word, which the Regent himself had used “—  _ grotesque _ scars on his back, from—”

“Yes,” Nikandros says, a hard edge to his voice. “I have seen his back.”

Nicaise opens his mouth, delighted, but Nikandros barrels on, voice low: “And he has told me some, if not all, that he has suffered under  _ your  _ country. And it was not a pleasant conversation.” Nicaise smiles, on cue. “Whether the story comes from you or him, it is much the same and no less difficult to hear. However, Damianos-Exalted bears that part of his life with a dignity no one else would have. He treats his time as a slave as a time of oppression, but not of shame, or dishonor. I will have to do much the same. Soon the whole of Akielos will learn to follow.”

Nikandros returns to his food with the air of a soldier following orders. Nicaise pouts.

The rest of the meal is eaten in silence.

 

vi.

Nicaise does not often see Prince Laurent outside of meals or from afar, which, if he wished to admit it (he did not), hurt a little. But Prince Laurent is a busy man.

_ When he’s not bedding the slave prince,  _ Nicaise’s brain adds, and he scowls.

So, when Prince Laurent shows up to speak personally with him one night, Nicaise is surprised, but he tries not to show it.

“Nicaise,” Laurent asks, “do you wish to survive?”

_ Survive? _   Nicaise wonders. Whatever that might mean. “I survive just fine without your help, thank you,” Nicaise says, and throws in a disbelieving laugh for his efforts. Which is ridiculous, really. After all, he had practically  _escaped to_ Laurent. Nicaise was fooling no one except himself. Wonderful.

A single pale eyebrow rises a fraction. “Really? In the Regent’s world when you were younger, perhaps. But you are no longer his pet, and I doubt you’d ever  _ choose _ to be.” To Nicaise, the voice sounds full of scorn. “And you are growing older.”

It had been quiet before, but now it feels like even the night wind has swiftly departed, and everything is deathly silent. Nicaise turns his eyes to the fire, lifting his chin in what could have been defiance (the truth is just that he cannot meet Laurent’s eyes). “I’ll survive.”

“How?”

“You assume I want  _ you _ to know.”

A pause, and then a sigh. “Nicaise,” says Prince Laurent, “I am offering you my help.”

Nicaise swallows. It becomes a little harder to hold his head up so high. “You assume I need it.”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure you’ll do just fine on your own.” Laurent rolls his eyes. “But I offer it nevertheless.” From a bag, he pulls out five books, one of them fairly thin and the other four of varying thickness, and places them on a small table. There is also paper, pen and ink. Nicaise blinks. “These are books, to continue your education. I know you can read, if only just. One of these is merely a primer, to assist you, but the rest are texts on arithmetic, history, and the like. Veretian, of course. I expect your penmanship to improve as well.” The prince straightens and turns to leave, then glances back. “You may ask me, if you have questions.” He sweeps away, leaving Nicaise winded.

 

vii.

He is too— skittish, and embarrassed, to touch the ink and pen and paper. He knows his handwriting will be terrible. Not at all like a prince’s smooth script, as he imagines Laurent’s would be.

But he works his way through the primer until he is claimed by sleep.

 

viii.

“Vicious little shit, isn’t he,” Nicaise hears the general Nikandros say of him, once.

“The worst,” the slave-prince Damen replies, then tilts his head. There is a smile in his voice. “Or, perhaps, second only to Laurent.”

Nikandros snorts. Nicaise smirks from out of their sights.  _ Second to Laurent, _ for him, was not that bad a thing to be.

 

ix.

He tries to approach an Akielon soldier, once. The one he already saw so often with the Veretian soldier Lazar. 

(Afterwards, he can’t explain why he did it, not even to himself. An... experiment, perhaps. Or a death wish. He isn’t sure, he isn’t sure.) He had sat— voluntarily, for the first time— next to the soldier by the fire, and sidled up perhaps a little too close to be natural, and after a while placed a hand on his thigh, and whispered words that, really, when it came down to it, were just— words.

But the soldier Pallas looks horrified. “What? Nicaise, no— look, you’re just a _kid_ .” 

Nicaise wants to sneer at him as he always has.  _ Fuck you. I’m not a child.  _ But the embarrassment coils in his stomach. He knows when he’s _overstepped_ , now. “I see,” he says stiffly, and moves away. 

Akielons are dumb and gullible and far too full of respectability. He doesn’t try again. 

 

x.

Nicaise does not get better at reading. Or writing, or fucking  _ arithmetic. _ Before being the Regent’s pet, he had not been in school either. He does not remember the last time he had had  _ schoolboy lessons.  _ So, really, what is the point. 

Therefore, when Prince Laurent comes to him again and declares that he has found him a  _ tutor, _ Nicaise voices his complaint. 

“I don’t see the point of this,” he tells Laurent airily, tossing his hair. (In reality he feels sullen.) “The lessons aren’t— necessary.”

Prince Laurent looks surprised into silence. For all of two seconds.

“Really,” the prince drawls, somehow managing to sound twice as haughty as Nicaise with a single word. “And here I thought you wished to survive.”

Survive, survive. What a strange word. Nicaise wondered if the Akielon word for it was pronounced that much differently, and if the connotations were different, too. 

“I can survive in my own ways,” Nicaise says. “Like you said, I’m— getting older. The Regent isn’t the  _ only  _ man in the world, after all. There will be other places.”  _ Like brothels, _ Nicaise’s brain supplies, but he ignores it and offers a laugh, false and sweet. “I don’t need your silly lessons.”

Suddenly, the prince is cold as a frozen lake and poisonous as a scorpion. “And that would be the life you wish to live?” he sneers. “How lovely. The child pet intends to fashion himself into a grown whore, and calls it  _ survival _ .”

Nicaise  _ flinches.  _ He has no retort.

Laurent watches him. “True survival entails much more than staying alive, Nicaise. It entails  _ living, _ and living  _ well.”  _ His voice is almost gentle. His mouth curls up. “A difficult lesson to learn, for both of us.” As he leaves, he calls, “Your riding and sparring lessons begin tomorrow morning. Do not be late.”

 

xi.

Nicaise writes and rewrites his name until it looks pretty, a fine, looping signature.  Then he works on the rest of the alphabet. His fingers are stained with ink, and he did not imagine paper cuts could hurt so much. He doesn’t mind.

 

xii.

The sword feels heavy and ungainly in Nicaise’s grip, and he loathes his own boyish hands, his thin arms. He might have preferred a knife. But then, Laurent had chosen him the sword for its difficulty.  _ Master the sword, and other weapons will come easy. _ Nicaise would have quite liked to bring the sword down onto Laurent’s head, if only he’d had the strength and awareness to do so.

“Your stance is clumsy,” his tutor says, when the sword clatters to the ground a sixth time. He corrects Nicaise's footwork. “Stand firmer. And for God’s sakes, boy, learn to parry before you attack.”

In Nicaise’s mind, the memory of Damianos in the training arena flashes, meeting Nikandros strike for strike, blow for blow. He recalls Laurent, duelling with flawless form, each movement fast as a predator, the sword a mere extension of his body, the training arena itself a part of his arsenal.

Nicaise scowls and firms his grip. “Again.”

 

xiii.

He thinks of Nikandros’ words, sometimes— or, perhaps, Nikandros’ borrowed words from Damianos. Damianos, the slave crown prince. It is— striking. In a way.

_ He treats his time as a slave as a time of oppression, but not of shame, or dishonor.  _

_ Soon, the whole of Akielos will learn to follow.  _

They are bold words, in the way Akielons are bold and straightforward and Nicaise  _ knew  _ it could never be that  _ simple,  _ but it is… nice. To hear. Nicaise rolls the words around in his head, caught by the heaviness of them. How strange for such large, grandiose words to be used when they were talking about  _ slaves. _

Still. Nice to hear.

A time of oppression, but not of shame. Nicaise breathes deeply, only a little worried, and thinks about freedom; and Akielon slaves and Veretian pets, and whether there was a difference; and freed slaves and freed pets, and the survival that would come after, and all that that might entail.

**Author's Note:**

> I've read so many "Nicaise Lives" AUs that... I'm not sure which one might have inspired this. But mostly this is a personal headcanon, because after all those AUs, do you really think I can still imagine him dead???? No. Nicaise is alive. Canon. He never had an unecessary death. Safe and sound, is Nicaise.
> 
> Also, this was written with barely any research. Because it was written in one go. I don't even know if Nikandros can speak Veretian??? He can. We'll pretend he can. I haven't bothered to flesh out where in the timeline this occurs, too, but imagine as you like. I've never written any of them before, and they're some of the most complicated people I've ever met, so I hope I've done it right. Hope you enjoy this, and please leave something - a comment, a bookmark, a kudos...


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